


Roadtrip

by characterdeath



Category: Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Blood, M/M, Pain, Psychological Manipulation, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-27
Updated: 2014-07-27
Packaged: 2018-02-10 16:09:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2031426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/characterdeath/pseuds/characterdeath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some drives are longer than others</p>
            </blockquote>





	Roadtrip

It hurts so much when he comes to his senses. Pain, pain, pain everywhere, blacking everything out. For a moment, he considers this being actual hell but the thought is quickly quashed when he actually opens his eyes  - no, not yet. He looks to his right, which costs him a jolt of harsh, unyielding pain.

He is in car (he recognizes the navy blue upholstery of one of those black Range Rovers he once ordered for his henchmen), and on his right, behind the wheel is Mr James Bond himself, covered in ash and dirt, short hair sticking up, sapphire blue eyes trained at the road ahead.

Silva looks down at his own body, ignoring the sharp stabs of pain - the blood has already stained the better part of the car seat; the wound must be exceedingly deep. He can’t move his shoulder; it feels too numb, as if it had never belonged to him in the first place.

‘’W-w-here are we going?’ He manages, voice too hoarse and mouth too dry, much less ostentatiously than initially planned. 

‘Wrong question.’

Bond turns to his side, sharply, as if woken up from a stupor. But, too late: by the time their eyes meet, he can tell Bond’s usual mask of over-the-top casualness and world-renown cockiness is already in place. 

Silva observes the surroundings visible in the flashes of headlights; he has always been good at telling the time without a watch being readily available. It is now the proverbial hour before dawn - the tips of darkened trees scattered around their route are touching the beginnings of a red dawn. They are out of the Highlands, for sure - trees, tall weeds. The fog settles very thickly here. 

‘Still in Scotland,’ Silva states his conclusion. 

‘But not for long.’ Bond finishes for him, calmly. 

Bond’s fingers grip the wheel, easily, almost matter-of-factly. That awful pounding noise is not in his head, Silva realises, it’s the raindrops beating against the car exterior, heavy and loud. 

‘And why are we here?’ The blond continues the line of questioning. Bond drives the way he seems to do everything - skillfully, efficiently, with just the right amount of anger behind the simplest of movements. 

‘I’ve been planning a road trip,’ Bond’s eyes narrow sheepishly. It’s quite obvious he aims it to hurt, but it doesn’t. 

‘To what end are you intending to pursue this?’ Silva asks. Pain shooting through his senses when he tries to shift into a more comfortable position to watch Bond’s reactions. The seatbelt digs right into his ribs.

‘To an end I would deem fit.’

‘I’m bleeding,’ Silva states matter-of-factly, raising his right hand up - it’s thoroughly blood-stained. And he realises the pain and possibly the loss of blood has made him light-headed, deeply and profoundly light-headed and there is a mirrored fog in his head now too, and that heat alternates between utter coldness somehow, all over his skin. 

He finally recognises - the severe blood loss is making him high. It’s such an alien sensation; he hasn’t taken any drugs since those long forgotten days of his youth and general painkillers stopped working a few months after China. He welcomes the light-headedness with open arms. 

‘That wound’s worse than it looks,’ Bond offers, not a hint of sympathy in his voice. Ever the bloody exemplar of British fortitude. 

 

There is a quiet sense of power about Bond, Silva thinks, the calmness and precision of a missile; so deadly, yet so indifferent in its brutality. What a remarkable transformation it is from the shell of a person he appeared to be back on the island. Oh yes, the changes made in the face of pain; Silva understands those better than anyone. 

‘It’s almost ironic how much you remind me of myself.’ Silva informs him. ‘I’d laugh, but it hurts terribly.’

‘You and I are nothing alike.’Bond reaches his hand to turn on the heating and it feels wonderful, the warm breeze all over, and Silva finally stops shivering. 

‘So you keep insisting.’ 

‘Where I enjoy simplicity, you seem to have a pathological need for complications.’ Bond’s voice could rival Scotland’s dismal landscape on the horizon in iciness. 

‘You enjoy being a blunt tool of a burned out Empire,’ Silva rebuffs with ease. ‘I much prefer marking my own territories.’

‘You should stop talking. You’ll only lose more blood.’ Bond warns coldly.

The blond smirks.

‘That puts me simply between deaths.’

Bond doesn’t reply to that, but he does turn on the radio. It bristles with quiet static, before it switches to people’s alarmed voices. Bond recognises Tanner’s high pitch giving instructions and listing casualties and instinctively looks over at the hacker. 

_Everyone, I repeat everyone, high alert, Code EM16. Coordinates: 55.9500° N, 3.1833° W.Head of SIS down. I repeat, head of SIS down. Urgent back up is required, effective immediately._

Their eyes meet, almost by instinct. Silva tries to shrug, but his shoulders feel like clay.

‘James.’ It lies heavy on his tongue, like good scotch. He doesn’t go on.

It’s petty and ultimately unfulfilling, just as this ride, but he likes saying it nonetheless. He also likes how Bond turns away, quicker than he should.

Silva thinks how ironic life really is. He should feel anything, happiness, remorse, disappointment - at both M’s death and his own survival - but upon brief self-reflection moments between dealing with jolts of ridiculous pain he can tell he feels absolutely nothing. 

When Bond finally speaks, it’s entirely worth the wait. 

‘Effective immediately. As bloody quaint as everything else’. And with that, Double-oh-Seven changes the radio channel to some popular music channel. Quite a pleasing strong accented female soprano fills the quiet car. 

‘I agree, not my favorite radio station,’ Silva grins.    
  


Suddenly, the agent twists the wheel in a quick, violent move and hits on the brakes, hard. They stop by the roadside, two wheels of a Rover touching the short wet grass, the agonising sound of tires attempting to find grip.  

By the time Silva actually feels the ocean wave of pain from the seat belt pushing into his mutilated body, he no longer cares. Physicality has not been his primary concern for many years.

Bond turns to him, grabs him by the shoulder - which hurts even more, if such a point on a scale even exists, - and rasps,‘Shut up. Just shut up.’

His eyes look maniacal; no more detachment, no more control. There is pure fire in the icy blue depths now, and Silva thinks of scorching Icelandic geysers. majestic and violent. 

‘Finally.’ He grins openly at Bond. ‘Finally, you see.’

The radio keeps playing, the singer repeating,  _I’ll meet you there,_ over and over. There isn’t a car in sight - Silva checks the side mirror, briefly. It’s almost as if they are alone in the world. 

The hand on his shoulder is still there, gripping and he looks down at it. Bond’s watch glistens in the faint light, part of the dial burnt, bearing evidence to the fire it witnessed a few hours ago.  

Bond lets go of his shoulder with a shove, his right hand jerking to the side of his jacket, pulling out a gun. He clicks off the safety, bringing it up to press the muzzle against Silva’s left temple.

‘If you say one more word, I will end you.’They’re both leaning in now, reading each other’s faces like poker players. Silva grins; he has always been a fan of a game of the proverbial chicken and he is certainly becoming a fan of finding new ways to drive this gorgeous killing machine with too many feelings of a man more and more insane. 

So he brings up his left hand, fingers gently tracing Bond’s lower lip, and whispers, slowly, menacingly.‘I’ve never had a thing for men who give out empty promises.’ 

It is a pleasure to watch a fire start once again in the deep fury of those eyes. Finally, this is equality of enemies. There are no more masks in place, or plexiglass walls for shooting each other looks through. The grandiose sense of the moment is as much an aphrodisiac as the smell of gunpowder that Silva registers absent-mindedly.   

Bond clicks the safety back on, his face bearing not a single trace of explanation. 

‘Don’t,’ Silva breathes, their lips close enough for a kiss. Or murder, whichever. ’I like you like this.’

‘It’s the blood loss talking.’Bond looks at him, for once eyes searching, with almost child-like bereavement. Silva keeps his hand under Bond’s chin, slightly lifting it up and the agent makes no move to stop him.

A barely-there shake of head, and Silva feels metal of the gun cutting into the skin. ‘That’s just physical stuff. Boring.’ He amplifies the “o” in boring, one eyebrow raising audaciously. 

‘Or you have a death wish.’ Bond breathes out, voice rasp. 

‘Always.’ Silva answers sincerely. ‘Always, my darling.’

His Spanish-accented “r” in darling is a sharp sound cutting through Bond’s mind and he moves away with familiar quickness of a man who frequently leaves before the sun goes up and without waking their nightly companion, tucking a gun back into dirty jacket. 

He opens the car door and walks out, without closing it back, the beeping noise of a displeased electronic system loud in the quiet moist air. Silva watches Double-oh-Seven’s stiff-straight back leaning against the car’s strong bonnet, the bright orange light from a cigarette sparkling in the deep Scottish night. He unbuckles and gets out, slowly, every inch of his body burning with fever. For some reason it no longer hurts that much; the superficial reminder of pain lurking somewhere deep, but his back is simply numb. 

He comes up to Bond, stealing a cigarette from him and taking a place to his right, leaning on the bonnet for more support. The long-forgotten rush of nicotine fills his head.

‘You gave me morphine,’ Silva states as they both stare into the distance. The expected beginning of a sunrise has started ahead, the sky illuminating with the strongest of purples, reds, yellows. ‘I have too high of a tolerance.’

‘I should’ve expected that,’ Bond admits graciously, reaching for the cigarette and taking a long, long drag, eyes closing.

‘It still dulls the pain.’ Silva says. Their radio is playing in the distance, something slow, classic, and quite beautiful. ‘But keeps me awake.’

‘Small mercies.’ Bond nods, intently watching the sunrise. He has the look of a broken toy lying forgotten in the sandbox.

‘James.’ It sounds just as resonant as intended. 

Double-oh-Seven shifts his gaze to look at him, breathing out smoke through his nostrils. 

I’ll buy you a thousand Omegas, a brief irrational thought flashes through Silva’s mind. Perhaps, he was too quick to rule out blood loss just yet.

‘Yes,’ Bond says with finality. ‘Yes is my answer to that.’

 

 


End file.
